Disembodied Footsteps
by Alicamel
Summary: Wes/Lilah. Wesley has a new talent, and hes still sinking into despair.


Wes/Lilah! I am productive - see me go! Still needs some serious   
tweaking, but I'm putting it out there to see what people think Please let   
me know?   
  
There's a story behind this. Ages ago in her live journal, Kate, after   
watching "Untouched," decided that Wesley would have a psychic talent.   
Though it didn't start out that way, I think this is the tale of his. I'm also   
having the *most* bizarre double déjà vu moment right now. Excuse me.  
  
Wes/Lilah. Rated... well, if you can watch the show, you can read this.  
  
Disembodied Footsteps  
*********************   
  
It is better that he is invisible. He learnt this lesson painfully, as a child, but as time has passed it had been forgotten. A whirlwind of memories and experiences: training as a Watcher, being sent to Sunnydale, his time in LA; these have all replaced that one singularly important lesson. And now, as he begun to relearn it, Wesley found that it was just as painful now as it had been then, if not more so, if not multiplied by the factor of here and now.  
  
His final visit to Angel Investigations began this. Here, where he had once been visible, and more, he found himself shut out. It was after they had been told, by someone, and he had gone to collect the last few remains of his life with them. A mug, some books, an old amulet, nothing special.   
  
He'd walked though the lobby feeling the eyes all around him. Gunn and Fred   
sitting at the top of the stairs, looking shocked and angry, respectively. Angel, here, but unseen. His possessions were in a cardboard box on his desk. Not his desk, he remembered as he picked it up. Whose now? Angel's, Gunn's, Fred's?   
  
In the lobby he cradled the box in his arms, walking swiftly, then, pausing. He   
looked up at Gunn, held his gaze.   
  
Gunn looked right through him.   
  
He was nothing to these people.  
  
Shifting his gaze to Fred he knew instantly, painfully, that they were doomed. She was beautiful and they were beautiful and they were doomed, in the way beautiful things always are. The way Buffy was doomed. The way Faith was. The way the world was.  
  
But he wasn't doomed. He and Lilah, they weren't beautiful. He would go on and   
they would go on and the world would eventually be inhabited by people like them. Yes, the world was, indeed, doomed.  
  
With a swift turn of his heel he walked out into the beautiful sunshine.  
  
***  
  
Entering the empty apartment, you turn the silence into noise. Radios, television, your own voice, loud and proud and forever talking. All about your day.  
  
"I woke early this morning. You need new curtains. The light shines right through those... wakes me up. I'm not an up with the sun kinda gal..."  
  
"They've raised the price of coffee again. It's getting ridiculous. I'm going to start taking my own in."  
  
"Do you want extra cheese on the pizza? Or maybe we shouldn't have pizza, we   
always have pizza. Chinese? Or something else. Tacos, maybe?"  
  
The last one just to see the look on his face, but he's facing away from you, watching some documentary on the TV. He stays silent. Not even surprised you know everything about everyone.  
  
"I was thinking, we could ask some of my contractors to look into your little secret. Find out some facts, some other people who've..."  
  
You turn around. He's gone.  
  
***  
  
He was born invisible. And, like all children he was foolish. He struggled to be visible, to be seen and touched and heard, his efforts rewarded with anger and locked closet doors, so he soon forgot how to be visible. Easier to remain unseen, to remain untouched, he learned. To remain air and shadow. To be insubstantial. To be nothing.  
  
Then came Sunnydale, and his first assignment. Eager to relearn the secrets of the visible world he began pushing at his boundaries, ordering and controlling and fighting as he had been trained. And he was ignored by them all, (except for Cordelia who created a new him to please herself) and he was invisible.  
  
He sank into it, began embraced it. Moved from state to state killing demons as they came his way. Watching the visible people. Longing to be one of them. Believing he never could.  
  
Until.  
  
LA. City of angels, city of dreams. Angel Investigations. Friends, family, respect. People he cared about, the potential for more. . . visible. At last. And peaceful, for the first time in his life.  
  
And now, back to air and shadows. Embracing it fully for the first time. Having touched visibility and lost it again, he now longer believed he could be visible, no longer believed he was worth that.  
  
And now, things began to change.  
  
Someone was knocking on his door.  
  
***  
  
She was peaceful in her death-like slumber. He imagined that death would suit her. She slept on, unawares. Usually she would be long gone by now and he would be alone, the bed stripped, watching the blank television screen. But tonight...  
  
She fell asleep so quickly, and he found himself wondering if he was able to kick her out. Tonight he wanted to be seen, wanted to be heard, wanted to be touched. Angel and the others may no longer care, may no longer see him, but she did. She would kill him as soon as save him, but she cared, either way. She saw him, what he was, what he could be for both sides of the fight.  
  
She was a strange companion, but he couldn't imagine this without her. Couldn't   
imagine how she could still see him either, and then he figured it out.  
  
She was invisible too, and that was why she could see him.  
  
***  
  
He heard her talking on the phone one morning.  
  
"No Mom, its me Lilah - Your daughter - No - Mom, I - No. Look, I hope they're   
treating you okay - because I... I'm your daughter - Yes. Look, I'll be down next   
month - Your birthday - Yes, it... look, I've got to go. Work, I - Yes Mom, I'm a   
lawyer - Yes. - Goodbye. Love you. - Bye."  
  
***  
  
You walk into his apartment, a box of groceries under your arm. It looks empty, but you know it's not. You call his name and there is silence. For a moment you consider the possibilities that he has gone out, but then, no, he never goes out. He relies on you for everything (a shudder of pleasure), he needs you.  
  
"Wesley?" Silence. "I brought pizza." Entice him. You think it's a good offer. "Pepperoni with extra cheese."   
  
One minute he's gone the next minute he's there. You never quite catch him in   
transition and it always seems so sudden. He stares at you with empty grey eyes. "I brought some groceries too. Tea, milk..." You trail off. He doesn't care what groceries you've bought.   
  
***  
  
Slowly, he began to move forward on invisible feet.  
  
Lilah was staying more often than she was going, though neither of them   
acknowledged that. In the mornings they pretended the other was invisible, Lilah leaving while he was in the shower, to rush home and change before going to work to fight like a wildcat to be seen above the others.  
  
That was the difference, but the only difference, between them. They were both   
invisible, but he no longer cared.  
  
***  
  
"Does it hurt?" You ask.  
  
You're both naked, and visible and lying in a post-coital, post-alcoholic haze, on your backs, not touching.  
  
"Yes." He says no more.   
  
"How?"   
  
"Like being stabbed with a thousand hot needles."  
  
"You still do it though. Go through it. Why?"  
  
"Because what's the other side of the pain is worth it."  
  
"What's on the other side?"  
  
He doesn't answer, though you wait for a long time before turning on your side to look at his face. He pretends to have fallen asleep.  
  
***  
  
Slowly he was moving forward on invisible feet, though he didn't know where to.   
  
His motions where directionless, he was confused, he walked into things. He   
relearned, painfully, how to walk, how to touch. Not to speak. But he was moving forward, rather than standing still. He felt a hint of direction at his back, with Lilah's encouraging words. Forwards momentum. It had to be good.  
  
He could make himself into shadow and air, endure the pain, come through the other side. He could hold his hands up in front of him and see nothing. He could look in a mirror and not have to avoid his own eyes.  
  
He could go anywhere, do anything. Return to the Hyperion if he so desired, if he caved to Lilah's unending suggestions.   
  
He didn't. They were no longer a part of his life. They belonged to a different world in more than one sense. Invisibility was more than just a psychic trick for him, it was a state of mind.  
  
***  
  
If only they could see me now. My own little joke. I suppose I must amuse myself, after all, it's not as if some one else will. So, if only they could see me now. Yes, you're right. It loses its punch the second time round. Hell, it was a pretty piss-poor joke the first time round, and it's only going to get weaker each time.   
  
I amuse myself.  
  
So, it only they could see me now, and by 'they,' of course, I mean The Team. The AI, bloody perfect, moral high ground group of do-gooders. My friends. Excuse me, ex-friends. Them. They.   
  
Can't see me, wouldn't anyway, even if I wanted them to, even if they could. And if they don't want to see me, I'm not going to see them. Yes, I'm 'fucking five years old' Lilah. Take a hint and drop the subject. I wouldn't spy on them, even if I did care how much Wolfram and Hart and Angel Investigations kill the life out of each other.  
  
Kill the life. Damn, that wasn't even funny, either. My jokes really aren't. No wonder I'm going crazy.  
  
No, this isn't a gift. Not much of a curse either. Just the way life goes. I can become invisible. Big bloody deal. No don't bother to look into it. These things happen. I don't care. Save your expensive outside contractors for important things. Don't spend that dirty money on me. Just 'cause I'm fucking you, doesn't mean I want in on your side of the fight.  
  
I don't care either way.  
  
Not anymore.  
  
***  
  
The first time he vanished in front of you, you smothered a gasp. The second time you edged a hand forward to where you thought he was, but caught only air. He laughed, less than that, a snort, from some place to your left and you turned, placed a hand against his now still chest, looked to where you imagined his eyes to be. He was cold, even through his invisible shirt.  
  
***  
  
Slowly he was moving forward on invisible feet. Moving further into nothingness, further into air. He was invisible for days now, though no one knew but her. It was like being in a dream. His life, his memories, friend and family, they didn't exist anymore. Just him and an empty mirror.   
  
And her. Always her.  
  
***  
  
You hear crying when you enter, but you don't know exactly where it's coming from. He's invisible, of course, as he always seems to be. You're angry. You know exactly why.  
  
"Wesley?" Your voice is hard. The crying stops, but he can't smoother the hiccups of sobs. On the sofa - no beside it. Your hand reaches out, searches, finds a leg, an arm, a face. Hand on his cheek. "What the hell are you doing?" You ask.   
  
He chokes down a sob. "Let me see you."  
  
"No. Not. . . not like this."  
  
You frown. "I don't like what this is doing to you."  
  
"You mean you actually care?" There. The question. The accusation. The same   
question you'd puzzled over for days, weeks, months. You'd been expecting it from his mouth eventually.  
  
You stand and swiftly leave. 


End file.
